Center for Research on Families News and Events

Women and Work Conference

CONFERENCE PRESENTERS: Books and Publications

Families and Work Institute's latest National Study of Employers

by Ellen Galinsky, James T. Bond, Kelly Sakai, with Stacy S. Kim, and Nicole Giuntoli

The study shows significant changes for U.S. workers since 1998 and employers with more ethnic and racial minorities in top and senior level positions, and nonprofits organizations, are more likely to offer flexible workplaces, caregiving leaves, child and elder care assistance, and health care/economic security benefits. The 2008 National Study of Employers is the largest and most comprehensive study of the programs, policies, and benefits designed to respond to the changing workforce. This nationally representative study of employers with 50 or more employees confirms that in the face of economic volatility, employers have generally held steady with the exception of benefits that carry hard costs -- with employees being asked to pick up a larger share of health care premiums and pension benefits. Yet in certain areas we are seeing expansions, including domestic partner health care coverage, access to Elder Care Resource or Referral, EAPs, flex time, wellness programs, and space for breastfeeding. The report includes interesting findings related to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA): 22% of employers offer more than the 12 weeks of mandated maternity leave, yet 18 to 21% of all employers surveyed appear to be out of compliance with FMLA. To download the full report click here.

This study was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to do about it

by Joan Williams

Joan Williams' Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict And What To Do About It (Oxford, 1999) is a "theoretically sophisticated and thoroughly accessible treatise" that offers a new vision of work, family, and gender. (Publisher's Weekly, Nov. 1, 1999) It examines our system of providing for children's care by placing their caregivers at the margins of economic life. This system that stems from the way we define our work ideals, notably from our definition of the ideal worker as one who takes no time off for childbearing or childrearing and who works full-time and is available for overtime. The ideal-worker norm clashes with our sense that children should be cared for by parents. The result is a system that is bad for men, worse for women, and disastrous for children. Williams documents that mothers remain economically marginalized, and points out that when mothers first marginalize and then divorce, their children often accompany them into poverty. Williams argues that designing workplaces around the bodies of men (who need no time off for childbearing) and men's life patterns (for women still do 80% of the child care) often constitutes discrimination against women. She also engages the work/family literature to show that "flexible" workplaces are often better than existing practices for employers' bottom line. On the family side, she argues that the ideal worker's wage -- after as well as before divorce -- reflects the joint work of the ideal worker and the primary caregiver of his children, and should be jointly owned. In a comprehensive examination of the theoretical issues surrounding work/family issues, she uses the work of Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu to explain why gender has proved so unchanging and unbending, reframing the special treatment/equal treatment debate, the debate over "women's voice," and offering new perspective on how to avoid the persistent race and class conflicts that emerge in debates over work and family issues.

Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home

by Pamela Stone

Noting a phenomenon that might seem to recall a previous era, The New York Times Magazine recently portrayed women who leave their careers in order to become full-time mothers as "opting out." But, are high-achieving professional women really choosing to abandon their careers in order to return home? This provocative study is the first to tackle this issue from the perspective of the women themselves. Based on a series of candid, in-depth interviews with women who returned home after working as doctors, lawyers, bankers, scientists, and other professions, Pamela Stone explores the role that their husbands, children, and coworkers play in their decision; how women's efforts to construct new lives and new identities unfold once they are home; and where their aspirations and plans for the future lie. What we learn—contrary to many media perceptions—is that these high-flying women are not opting out but are instead being pushed out of the workplace. Drawing on their experiences, Stone outlines concrete ideas for redesigning workplaces to make it easier for women—and men—to attain their goal of living rewarding lives that combine both families and careers.

-University of California Press

Ask the Children: The Breakthrough Study that Reveals How to Succeed at Work and Parenting

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by Ellen Galinsky

This is the first comprehensive study ever conducted that asks children and parents for their views on work and family life today. The responses Galinsky has gleaned from in-depth interviews and nationally representative surveys of children and parents are surprising, useful, and guaranteed to break the frantic cycle of guilt and stress that often traps parents. Five years in the making, the Ask the Children study questions accepted thinking on such issues as quality time vs. quantity time, how mothers parent their children compared to fathers, how much children really know about the daily lives of parents at work, how much parents like their work, what messages we're sending children about work, and much more. For example, while many parents worry that they may not be spending enough time with their children, time is not at the top of children's lists when they are asked to name their one wish for changing how their parents' work affects their lives. And while the debate rages about whether mothers' working is good or bad for children, it turns out that children learn more about the world of work from their mothers than they do from their fathers. As the century closes on a generation of working parents, we have a unique opportunity to view how far we have come as families and to chart the course ahead. Ask the Children provides a positive basis for understanding our past and is a point of departure for our future."

-From the Publisher and featured on Oprah

Work and Life Integration: Organizational, Cultural, and Individual Perspectives

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Edited by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Susan Lambert

Work-family researchers have had much success in encouraging both organizations and individuals to recognize the importance of achieving greater balance in life. Work and Life Integration addresses the intersection between work, life, and family in new and interesting ways. It discusses current challenges in dealing with work-life integration issues and sets the stage for future research agendas. The book enlightens the research community and informs the public debates on how workplaces can be made more family sensitive by providing contributions from psychologists, sociologists, and economists who have not shied away from asserting the policy implications of their findings.

-Work and Organizational Psychology Arena

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